


Trevelyan's Redundant Spare

by Wierdkid20



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Found Family, Grief/Mourning, NaNoWriMo, Teenage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), cause I am all about that shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-14 13:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16493132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wierdkid20/pseuds/Wierdkid20
Summary: There were four Trevelyan's at the conclave. It was proof of the Makers sense of humor that Ada, was the one to survive.





	1. Cassandra

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! this is my first Dragon Age fanfiction, I'm taking a break from my normal fanfiction series to do something a little different. I recently got into Dragon Age this year and have become completely obsessed with the series, I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while so this is what I'm going to do for Nanowrimo this year. I'll be trying to update daily and I hope you enjoy it!

 

They were calling her the Herald of Andraste. If you had told Cassandra Pentaghast yesterday that that referred to the sharp tongued child they had retrieved from the crater where the temple of sacred ashes had once stood, She might have laughed at you. Or yelled at you for your blasphemy.

 

It had been three days since the breach into the Fade had been... calmed, and their savior, the one bearing the mark was still unconscious. 

 

Solas had assured her that the Herald would live. That she was simply exhausted after spending magical energy that she did not have. Varric said it was sweet that she cared. 

 

There was another matter, Chancellor Roderick still wished to have the Herald sent to Val Royeaux for trial. Not that he seemed concerned about the fact that  _ they _ needed her. The girl may have fought Cassandra every step of the way in the valley, but she was the only one that could close the rifts that were appearing all over Thedas. And she was their only hope for discovering what had happened to the Divine.

 

“Her name is Ada Trevelyan.” Leliana said, joining Cassandra in their makeshift base of operations within the chantry. Cassandra looked up from the writ in her hand.  

 

“A Trevelyan?” Cassandra knew the name, anyone involved in the chantry was familiar with someone related to the Trevelyans. They were as numerous as Pentaghasts by some counts, and many could also claim relation to the Pentaghasts, and would.

 

“Indeed, Bann Trevelyan’s youngest.” Leliana continued “apparently four of his children were at the conclave, though none other survived. It’s been reported-” she was interrupted by Chancellor Rodericks intrusion

 

“Have you gone completely mad?!” Roderick ranted upon entrance. Cassandra saw Leliana give a deep sigh, this wasn’t the first argument they had had about the fate of the Herald, though their convictions had only grown in the past few days that she needed to stay here.

 

“Chancellor Roderick, we have been perfectly clear that the Herald-”

 

“Herald?!” Roderick said “She’s a criminal! She should be taken to Val Royeaux immediately!” It was at that moment that the door to the room opened yet again and the Herald of Andraste entered, flanked by two templars who had been guarding the room, for all the good it did to cut down their interruptions. 

 

The Herald of Andraste, Ada Trevelyan, did seem to be in better shape than she had when she closed the rift  and the Temple of Sacred Ashes. She couldn’t be more than 18, her hair was red brown, cropped short like Cassandra’s own. Her nose had been broken several times before and  her ears stuck out too far. Her skin, while pale with worry and the efforts of her recovery, still showed that she spent much time outside.

 

“Chain her!” Roderick attempted to order the templars. Cassandra braced herself against the desk, this had gone on long enough. “I want her prepared to be sent to the capital for trial.”

 

“Disregard that,” Cassandra ordered, bringing herself up to her full height. “Leave us.” The Trevelyan girl looked between the Templars, Cassandra and Roderick warily, but remained where she was. Roderick narrowed his eyes and turned on her.

 

“You walk a dangerous line, Seeker.” He said. Cassandra couldn’t believe this! How long was Roderick expecting this ‘trial’ to take? There was no one to judge her, the Sunburst throne was empty, Divine Justinia dead, and with the sky full of holes in the Fade how could they stand around to pin the blame?!

 

“The Breach is stable, but it is still a threat. I will not ignore it!” Cassandra said firmly. The Herald, still a little way from the table leapt to her defense quickly, because of course she did.

 

“I did everything I could! What more do you want! It almost killed me.” Trevelyan asked indignantly, and Cassandra... had to begrudge her that. 

 

“But you still live.” Roderick said pointedly, “How convenient for you to wake up a ‘hero’ after all the chaos you’ve caused”

 

“I told you before!” The Herald’s voice began to rise as her fists clenched. “I had nothing to do with that! Why would I kill the divine? Why would I blow up the Temple when so much-”

 

“You are not a suspect any longer.” Cassandra interrupted, Trevelyan turned on her fiercely but calmed with an eyebrow raise from Leliana

 

“ Someone was behind the explosion at the Conclave.” Leliana said patiently, her voice was much calmer than Cassandra’s, honestly Cassandra didn’t know how she did it with all these... bureaucrats.  “Someone Most Holy did not expect. Perhaps they died with the others – or have allies who yet live.” Roderick reeled from them.

 

“I am a suspect?!” He asked incredulously.

 

“You and many many others.” Leliana, her voice now gaining an edge.

 

“But not me?” Trevelyan asked skeptically.

 

“The divine called you for help.” Cassandra said, “Whether you remember or not, Solas has assured me that the voices at the temple were accurate if not... illuminating.” The Herald nodded, her head lowering as she hunched in on herself, rubbing her palm where the mark had appeared.

 

“So your saying that her survival,” Roderick nodded to the Herald. “That thing one her hand is all a coincidence?”

 

“Providence,” Cassandra said, despite her feelings on Trevelyan, she did have to admit that, for someone that they needed to quite literally fall from the sky could only have happened with the makers blessing. “The Maker sent her to us when we needed her most.”

 

The Herald went slightly pale, her eyes narrowed.

 

“You honestly think the Maker would send me? There had to have been a better choice .” 

 

Cassandra couldn’t disagree with her there.

 

“That may be true but,  I will not, pretend you were not exactly what we needed when we needed it.” Cassandra said. Leliana nodded

 

“Your mark is the only thing capable of closing the breach. You are our only hope.” Leliana said.  _ Maker help us _ Cassandra added mentally. Chancellor Roderick at this point apparently decided that he had not had enough input on the matter.

 

“This is not a decision for you to make, the new Divine-” Cassandra interrupted him by finally slamming the book on the table.

 

“Do you know what this is, Chancellor? A writ from the Divine, granting us authority to act.” Cassandra said, she crossed the room towards roderick, feeling all her fury exit through her words.  “As of this moment, I declare the Inquisition reborn.”

 

Roderick sputtered. “You can’t-”

 

“We will!” Cassandra snapped backing him towards the door. “We will close the Breach, we will find those responsible, and we will restore order with or without your approval.”

 

Roderick stared at her, mouth agape and for a moment Cassandra thought he might try to argue. Instead she was met with a scowl as the chancellor left the room.

“What.. exactly is in that writ?” The Herald asked. Cassandra turned and saw the girl staring at the book, curious yet trying to remain aloof.

 

“The Divines directive was to rebuild the inquisition of old.” Leliana said, she always was better at putting this into words. “Find those that will stand against the chaos and restore order.” Leliana shook her head. “But we aren’t ready, we have no leader, no numbers, and now no chantry support.” She grinned ruefully at Cassandra, who smirked back and shook her head. Of course they didn’t, that would be too easy, they would just have to hope. And rely on the Maker.

 

“This...” Trevelyan hesitated. “You can’t honestly want me for this, surely there must be another way.”

 

“There is no other way!” Cassandra snapped. The Herald bristled.

 

“There always is! You can’t honestly think that grating against the chanrty and starting another holy war is the only way! You can’t truly believe that involving me is a good idea, haven’t I caused both of you enough trouble already.”

 

“We are already at war! You are already involved!” Cassandra said. “Child, you can’t honestly believe-”

 

“I am not a child!”

 

“We can help you.” Leliana said firmly, putting their argument to a stop with only a few words. “You can’t truly say that this hasn’t changed you.” Trevelyan looked at the mark, and hunched her shoulders again. “We can restore order, and find who did this to the divine, the conclave and to you.” Cassandra stared at the girl until she looked up, her expression had reformed into something... a little more determined after Leliana's words.

 

“Help us do this, before it’s too late.” Cassandra said, she held out her hand, and Trevelyan shook it, firmly with a nod, her left hand still clutched tightly, as if trying to hold back the glow.

 

“Fine.” She said. “I’ll do it.”


	2. Ada

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah that updating everyday thing didn't happen, and honestly, with my new job nano might not be happening anymore either, but I'm going to try to see this fic to the end. Hope you enjoy!

Herald of Andraste. It was proof of the Maker’s sense of humor that people were even calling Ada such a ridiculous thing.

 

And to be frank it was terrifying. She wasn’t anything special. She was the youngest of...well there had been six. And anyway it shouldn’t be her. The maker would never choose a Trevelyan that refused to fall into his service. Then again, in a way working for the inquisition, wasn’t she in his service anyway? 

 

Thankfully there were things to do. Things that took her out of Havens walls, away from the people who called her Herald and flocked to see the one that Andraste herself had lead out of the fade. Threnn was more than willing to put her to work, gathering materials to help the ever growing forces. Commander Cullen allowed her to participate in drills he ran the recruits through, or at least he didn’t stop her. And Adann was thankful when she retrieved the notes from Master Taigen’s cabin, thankful enough to not tell anyone where’s she’d gone when she was hiding in the small space behind the Healers cottage.

 

“The chosen of Andraste.” Solas of course always managed to find her, unfortunately. “The blessed hero sent to save us all.” Ada rolled her eyes and continued sharpening the greatsword that had fallen off the bridge with her and Cassandra. It wasn’t much but it was all she had for now.

 

“I’m not a hero” Ada said. There was a pause and after a moment Solas sat beside her. 

 

“Perhaps not yet but most hero’s rarely are at the beginning.” Solas said. Ada glanced at Solas, she was familiar with elves but rarely had the chance to interact with them, that was the interesting part about the inquisition already, the vast amount of races who had come together. She supposed a hole in the sky must be a big enough problem for people to finally look past their usual nonsense.

 

“Well I’m sure someone else will do the job admirably. You maybe?” Ada said. Solas laughed softly.

 

“An Elven apostate? Hero of the inquisition?” He asked. “The world may not survive that.” Ada shook her head and set aside her whet stone. 

 

“Why not? I’m sure you would do better than I.” Ada looked at her bare left hand. It was numb, like she had slept on it. Everything was muted through her touch and when she had gone to put glove on the fabric had felt like knives against the green glow of the mark. This wasn’t something that happened to hero’s, they weren’t marked by benevolent magic that nearly destroyed the world. This was the kind of thing that happened to martyrs. And Maker hadn’t she seen enough death already?

 

“I doubt that.” Solas said. “You’ve already done so well.” Ada grumbled and gathered her things, leaving Solas and her quiet spot to brave the rest of Haven, maybe she should get something less distinctive to wear than these pale clothes someone had given her. Or maybe make something, surely someone had yarn available around here. She stood out too much.

She began to exit the villiage, ducking her head as much as she could amongst soldiers and scouts in Inquisition uniforms, along with flocks of Chantry sisters. The white hoods pained her, she kept expecting one of them to turn around and reveal Evelyn’s face. 

 

All this maneuvering and attempts to be sneaky, something she was  _ not _ good at, was thwarted by running into Varric. Varric Tethras, the illustrious author that had shot a through two wraiths and neatly pinned a bolt less that 2 inches from her head. Ada was still amazed he was actually here, and wished that she had at least gotten a scar from the encounter. It would have made up for the mark a hundred fold.

 

“Oh! Sorry.” Ada said gingerly dancing around him. “Didn’t mean to bother you.”

 

“Eh don’t worry about it kid.” Varric said. “ So, are you holding up alright?” He asked. Ada hesitated. 

 

“I... I’ll be fine.” Ada said. Varric raised an eyebrow, and unfortunately that was all it took for to Ada crumble. “I... why am I here?!” She said. “Maker, of everyone he could of picked from the Conclave he picked me!” Ava said and that was all it took for her to start babbling, “Alena, she would have done so much better with all of this! she would have embraced the title of Herald of Andraste. Evelyn would have been over the moon with the idea of being important. Maxwell might not have been but... shit he knew about magic stuff and all this fade bullshit. But me...” She paused and looked in horror at Varric, realizing that her eyes were full of tears.

 

“Hey, Hey.” Varric said, there was a handkerchief offered to her and Ada fumbled, dropping her sword before she took it. “I get it. Getting thrust into all this shit would be hard on anyone” he said.  “I’m still not sure I believe that any of this is really happening.”

 

Ada chuckled and wiped her, now much more red, face.

 

“Maybe it’s not.”

 

“Well if this is all just the Maker winding us up, I hope there is a damn good punchline coming.” Varric said. Ada giggled, borderline blasphemy would have been punished at home but here, she was pretty sure they had earned it. Her laugh caused Varric to smile wider, only to have everything cut off by Cassandra’s voice.

 

“Herald!”

 

Ada cursed under her breath and scrubbed at her face, handing the handkerchief back to Varric. Cassandra already didn’t like her, her attitude in the valley certainly hadn’t helped that. Crying infront of Cassandra would do nothing to improve the Seeker’s opinion of her.

 

“Yes Seeker Pentaghast?” Ada said, gathering her sword. She was doing her best to keep her voice respectful, she could practically hear her mother in her head telling her, yet again, to watch her tongue. 

 

“I... Harritt sent me, he needs to do the final fitting on you armor.” 

 

“So the blacksmith sent you over, Seeker?” Varric asked with a smirk. “I know the inquisition is understaffed but doesn’t he have someone to do that for him?” Cassandra narrowed her eyes at Varric and the rogues shit eating grin was almost enough to thaw the pit of ice that had formed in Ada’s gut, she did not want to talk to Cassandra for longer than necessary, really the best thing would be for them to not have to interact with each other until this whole, ‘demons falling from the sky’ issue was over.

 

“Herald, if you will come with me,” Cassandra said. Ada forced a smile, the polite one that her sister Rachel insisted she use when the prominent members of Ostwick society visited.

 

“Of course.” She said. Varric gave her a pitying wave. 

 

“Talk to you later, Glowbug.” Varric said.

 

“..Does it trouble you?” Cassandra asked when they had walked a little ways away from Varric. Ada glanced down at the glowing anchor and shrugged.

 

“Only when I think about it.” She said. Which was often, anytime she tried to grab something with that hand.

 

“Well we must take our victories where we can.” Cassandra’s face was stoic, “What’s important is that your mark is now stable, along with the breach.”

 

“But the Breach still hasn’t closed completely, along with the rest of the rifts.” Ada thought back to the tears in the Fade she had seen just within a few miles of Haven. She could practically see them all over Ostwick, was the rest of her family safe?

 

“Solas believes a second attempt may succeed if there is sufficient power behind the mark, but that will not be easy to come by.”

 

“I’m assuming all of you have a plan.” Ada said with a frown, couldn’t you only power magic with magic? She didn’t know, all of this was well beyond her tiny, tiny grasp of how magic worked.

 

“We do.” Cassandra said, but didn’t elaborate. They exited the walls of Haven and rounded the corner towards the smithy. The tension was unbearable, not unfamiliar though. 

 

Thankfully Harrit broke it. “Good, took you long enough.”

 

“My apologies.” Ada said, “I didn’t make finding me any easier on Cassandra.”  Harritt nodded and gestured to a pile of gear. 

 

“Should all fit, Marris can do any fine tuning.” Harritt said gesturing to a dark skinned elf working at riveting a strap of leather. “Seeker, I’ve managed to patch your armor plate but I really think-” Ada broke from the pair and approached the stack of armor. Maille, plate, simple, good quality, and far studier than anything she had fallen out of the fade wearing. 

 

“Need some help?” The elf looked up from his work. He couldn’t be any older than she was.

 

Ada shook her head, and began to pull on the hauberk. It fit like a glove as it slid into place over top her shoulders. When her head emerged from the maille Marris was standing next to her holding up the breastplate. 

 

“Oh er, thank you” Ada held it while he buckled it into place. Up close he smelled like metal and fire, like the rest of the forge, his curly black hair was pulled back tightly into a horsetail and along his face Ada could see tiny scars. Surprisingly enough, he had grey eyes, almost blue.

 

“My pleasure, Herald.” He looked at her with a grin.

 

“Ada.” She said snapping out of her thoughts. “Please call me Ada.”

 

“Right, of course,” Marris said.

 

“You’re... a smith?” Ada asked sitting down and strapping on the leg plates. Marris nodded.

 

“I am, they do let elves be smiths, sometimes.” Marris handed her the gloves and Ada pretended to be focused on pulling on her right one to hide her blush. She stopped at the left glove and sheepishly handed it back to Marris.

 

“I can’t wear this one.” She said, Marris looked confused then glanced down at the mark and frowned.

 

“May I...” He gestured to her left hand and Ada showed him the relatively dormant mark. He inspected it, rolling up her sleeve to see where there glowing green extended along her veins and frowned thoughtfully. “Give me a moment, I can alter the glove.”

 

“That’s really not necessary,” Ada said. “Everything else fits fine, I’m sure I’ll be fine without it I don’t want to waste anymore of your time and-”

 

“It’s no trouble Ada.” Marris smiled at her softly. “Besides, that the important hand anyway isn’t it?”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh! and I really appreciate kudos, even if you've already left them! just send "Kudos!" in a comment and I'll get the message


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